Fasting during the Pentecostarion

[Jonathan Gress]

Christos anesti!

I am curious about the practice of relaxing the Wednesday and Friday fasts between Thomas Sunday and Pentecost. According to some you're allowed wine and oil on these days, but according to others they are dry-eating days as throughout the rest of the year. Is this something to do with Russian versus Greek practice? Or is relaxing the fast a 'modernist' innovation?

[Dimitris]

Alithos anesti!

You are right, there seem to be different traditions.

According to http://stseraphimboise.org/schedule.html (ROCOR) it is strict fast.
According to http://www.goarch.org/en/chapel/calendar.asp (Ecumenical Patriarchate) wine and oil is allowed.
According to http://www.holytrinityorthodox.com/calendar/ (Moscow Patriarchate) even fish is allowed.

So it would be best to ask your priest which rule to apply.

Kind regards,
Dimitris

[Fr Raphael Vereshack]

This is very interesting. I was always taught that Wednesdays & Fridays are wine & oil days during the period of the Pentecostarion, except on days where there is a saint of polyeley or vigil rank- in which case fish also is allowed. This for example is clearly indicated on the St Herman's Calendar from Platina. I always thought this was standard Russian practice.

However I always thought that Byzantine practice was to allow fish also on these Wednesdays & Fridays after Pascha.

However the very interesting thing is that the Goarch calendar has wine & oil for these days- as if it has been corrected from previous common practice.

But on the Holy Trinity/MP calendar fish is indicated. What is more striking about this is that when you go to pravoslavie.ru (http://days.pravoslavie.ru/Days/20080501.htm)
fish is clearly indicated for all of the Wednesdays & Fridays after Pascha.

I have never seen this before on a Russian calendar. Pravoslavie is about as official as you can get even at times reflecting the more strict, monastic fast. So I wonder what is behind this change.

In the risen Christ- Fr Raphael


Alithos anesti!

You are right, there seem to be different traditions.

According to http://stseraphimboise.org/schedule.html (ROCOR) it is strict fast.
According to http://www.goarch.org/en/chapel/calendar.asp (Ecumenical Patriarchate) wine and oil is allowed.
According to http://www.holytrinityorthodox.com/calendar/ (Moscow Patriarchate) even fish is allowed.

So it would be best to ask your priest which rule to apply.

Kind regards,
Dimitris

[Father David Moser]

According to http://stseraphimboise.org/schedule.html (ROCOR) it is strict fast.

Just a stray note. This is my parish webpage and I don't think that on that calendar we normally differentiate between "strict fast" and "wine and oil" days on regular Wed. and Fri. According to the "official" calendar, Wed and Fri, are all wine and oil during the pentecostarion. Also, it has been my experience that having fish on Wed and Fri is a very common practice among even the strictest Russians.

Fr David Moser

[Rick H.]

A little further astray . . . Father David, on the site in your 2008 photo album, why is there a man "barefoot" (behind you) holding a candle? Why no shoes?

[Fr Raphael Vereshack]

Father David wrote:


Also, it has been my experience that having fish on Wed and Fri is a very common practice among even the strictest Russians.


I just did some research on this by looking in the Nikol'sky Ustav (this is a commentary by Protoirei Constantine Nikol'sky on the ustav and how it relates to the complete cycle of services. It was published in the late 1800s and has been continually republished thru the last century and used as a standard reference book.).

In any case in the footnote on p. 494 he writes that in the Nomocanon of the Great Trebnik (rule 227) it is stated that through the Pentecost period on Wednesdays & Fridays, fish is allowed for laity, but for monastics, only oil & wine.

Fr Constantine does not explain the reason for this except perhaps in the first words of the footnote where he quotes the Nomocanon to the effect that fish is allowed throughout the year on Wednesdays and Fridays whenever it is a Feast of the Lord or the Theotokos. Perhaps the period after Pascha could thus be considered an extended Feast of the Lord.

What is interesting here is that he does not refer to local Russian practice but rather puts it in the context of what is found in at least what the Nomocanon presents.

I still do not however know exactly what to make of what is found on the pravoslavie calendar. First I can say they are very careful and even on the strict side in what they describe for the fasting rules. Then I think they have changed from previous years what they used to have for these Wednesdays & Fridays.

Could it be that as the Church 'settles down' in Russia they gradually have discovered what the typikon actually says? This can certainly be seen in other service books coming out of Russia these days.

In any case, this is certainly an interesting question.

In the risen Christ- Fr Raphael

[Father David Moser]

A little further astray . . . Father David, on the site in your 2008 photo album, why is there a man "barefoot" (behind you) holding a candle? Why no shoes?

That was at his baptism. Since the feet are annointed both with oil and with chrism, I always recommend that those who are to be baptised just go barefoot to avoid taking shoes/socks on and off (it also makes it easier getting into the water since there are no shoes/socks to take off). Since he's holding a candle, that would have been just after his baptism so the bare feet would have been due to his chrismation and the subsequent "cleansing" (wiping the excess chrism off with a cloth moistened with holy water.)

Fr David Moser

[Alex Haig]

Christ is Risen!

I believe the Antiochian custom (updated about 10 years ago by the Holy Synod) is there is no fasting at all from Pascha until Ascension (unfortunately I do not have a reference for this). This would then mean that 40 days of fasting are followed by 40 days of feasting.

With love in the Risen Christ

Alex

[Michael Stickles]

I believe the Antiochian custom (updated about 10 years ago by the Holy Synod) is there is no fasting at all from Pascha until Ascension (unfortunately I do not have a reference for this).

Found a couple of references for you - an online bulletin (http://www.antiochian.org/1177676297) from St. Anthony's Antiochian Orthodox Church in NJ, and an article on asceticism (http://www.antiochian-orthodox.co.uk/image_likeness.htm) on the website of the Antiochian Orthodox Deanery of the U.K. and Ireland (relevant section near the bottom). The web page (http://www.straphaelorthodoxchurch.org/) of the St. Raphael Antiochian Orthodox Church in Iowa City says the Wednesday and Friday fasts are optional (instead of just saying "no fasting"), but in common practice those probably work out to the same thing :-). Note: that last link will be time-sensitive, since they have the current week's bulletin on their home page.

In Christ
Mike

[Michael Astley]

In the Western Rite, there is a clear distinction drawn between fasting, (referring to the quantity of food that is eaten), and abstinence, (referring to the type of food that is eaten). Interestingly, this same distinction is reflected in the canons.

Generally, on a fast day, no food is taken until after the ninth hour. After this, food is permitted, but abstinence from certain types of food is practised from that point forwards.

While Wednesdays and Fridays are days of both fasting and abstinence in the Western Rite, traditionally the fasting is suspended from Pascha to Pentecost so that Wednesdays and Fridays are only days of abstinence.

I don't know whether there has been cross-fertilisaton of traditions here but it's a thought.

Pax,
Michael